Summary: A growing voice of concern about the integrity of the European Patent Organisation, whose management appears to be in cahoots (overseers/regulators included) so as to cover up its own serious abuses

THE internal and external affairs at the EPO look uglier by the day, if it’s possible at all for things to get any uglier when staff already dies. The EPO crisis fascinates us enough to have already dedicated close to 1,500 articles to it. It won’t stop until justice gets served and the EPO is (hopefully, if not too late) saved.

If the EPO does not fire Battistelli next week (it probably won’t, but it definitely should), then the whole Organisation (which is fed by fees from the Office) will continue to descend to new lows and it’ll definitely harm Europe’s competitiveness. A lot of the corporate media (especially in Germany) does not seem to understand — or maybe does not want to understand — how pressing an issue this is.

Thankfully, some in the British media seem to be more responsive and are paying attention to the pleas of EPO staff. This morning the following article got published by The Register:

Guess King Battistelli’s plan to fix the Euro Patent Office. Yep, give himself more power

The president of the European Patent Office has responded to a formal rebuke of efforts to impose his will on the organization by asking for more power.

The man who last week was called a disgrace to his country in the French National Assembly has been accused of targeting EPO staff who opposed his reforms and of running sham disciplinary hearings as part of a campaign of intimidation.

Some of Benoit Battistelli’s reforms have been enacted, whereas others – especially those that grant the president additional powers and effectively place him above the EPO’s independent review and appeal processes – have been bitterly fought.

Several staff members, including the staff union’s secretary, were placed on administrative leave by Battistelli over a year ago and have been put through what many claim have been a series of illegal and irregular hearings.

In a decision that lent significant weight to the staff’s complaints, those hearings were effectively nullified last week by the International Labour Organization Administration Tribunal (ILO-AT). The ILO-AT found that Benoit Battistelli had delegitimized the EPO’s Appeals Committee (ApC) by inserting two staff “volunteers” on the five-person panel rather than allowing the EPO’s central staff committee to select them. It also found the EPO’s management had mishandled critical aspects of the appeals process.

But, true to form, Battistelli has reacted by doubling down.

[...]

Now that approach – of having two staff volunteers – has also been deemed illegal. So what is Battistelli’s solution? That’s right: to give him the power to appoint people to the Appeals Committee.

In a formal proposal to the EPO’s General Consultative Committee, Battistelli has attempted to reintroduce a change to the EPO’s “service regulations” that he previously put forward, but which was rejected.

Under his “new” proposal, “if the Central Staff Committee fails to make appointments to these bodies, the President shall take appropriate steps to ensure the necessary appointments, such as by drawing lots or calling for volunteers from among all elected Staff Committee members.”

[...]

This approach – where Battistelli tells people what he wants to happen; is told that breaks the organization’s rules; and then attempts to rewrite the rules to give him the power to do it regardless – has become the president’s modi operandi and the reason he has been dubbed “King Battistelli.”

This is a very good article from one who has followed these affairs closely. It’s even a two-page article, for a change. Found in WIPR yesterday [via, top story too] was this article which quotes anonymous EPO insiders. This London-based publication, which targets law firms (unlike The Register, which targets technology firms not only in Britain), said this:

A source close to the Staff Union of the European Patent Office said: “Once more we are sad that instead of fixing what he has broken (namely a functioning internal appeals committee), Battistelli’s new proposal shows that he solely aims to circumvent the central staff committee.”

They added that the staff committee had “solid legal reasons not to nominate staff into the internal committee after two of its members had been downgraded by Battistelli”.

The morally corrupt patent office of Battistelli is more interested in legalising its sheer abuses rather than actually addressing them. Corrupt. Utterly.

What can Battistelli say for himself? The headline from WIPR is far too soft (compared to The Register‘s). It says “Battistelli asks to nominate EPO appeals committee members” as if he’s some gentleman asking for staff participation. While he sharpens his sword maybe…

“Shark asks fish to nominate sacrifices” is the analogy I used yesterday.

Only a fool would want to issue a judgment/call that does not satisfy the monster, Mr. Battistelli. The Liar in Chief, who falsely accuses people along with his buddy’s wife (Bergot), often dismisses them (only after bankrupting them financially and mentally). When they do this they always disguise the real motivation, as Battistelli’s goon did on Dutch television, pretending that the pattern on attacks on staff representative was just an incredible coincidence, not a union-busting effort.

The EPO is rapidly becoming synonymous with corruption. Yes, corruption. Moral corruption and some tell us fraud, too. Where is the German police? Where are the German authorities? For political/economic reasons they seem to be turning a blind eye to anything that is being presented to them. And rightly so… considering what kind of employers they have paying their salaries. It doesn’t look as though even ILO (or the UN) can compel the EPO to obey the law. Dutch courts, including the highest court in the Netherlands, are the subject of scorn inside Team Battistelli. It’s like the Mafia in Italy, except the Mafia does occasionally have to fight for its corner and corrupt some officials for protection. What Battistelli does to the EPO right now is similar to what France did to Algiers and he sucks everything that’s inside the EPO (decades’ worth of reputation and assets) for short-term personal gain. The FIFA scandal is utterly minuscule compared to this.

To quote some new comments (posted anonymously in IP Kat, which has not yet written a single article on this subject):

New rule to be decided by the Council next week:

“if the Central Staff Committee, despite an invitation to do so, fails to make appointments to these bodies, the President shall take appropriate steps to ensure and make the necessary appointments, such as calling for volunteers or drawing lots from among eligible staff members.”

Attention: “from among eligible staff members” and not “from elected staff representatives”. Deliberately. A very interesting phrase.

Yes, we noticed this the other day. “Following their resignation they have been publically defamed by VP4 and VP5 and then abusively disciplined (both downgraded),” added another comment. To quote:

FACTS
the two staff reps nominees resigned during autumn 2014 (since they could not perform their work as they should have, due to several defficiencies reported to Battistelli and left uncorrected on purpose). Following their resignation they have been publically defamed by VP4 and VP5 and then abusively disciplined (both downgraded).

Facing such appaling situation the CSC did not want to nominate anyone anew before the reported defficencies had been corredted and insurance had been given that the new nominees would not be again pressurized and sanctioned.

As you may imagine Battistelli did nothing to redress the internal appeal system he and his associates had broken. Instead Battistelli “invited” all CSC nominees (read threathened them of disciplinary santions) and the weakest “volunteered”.

So much for independent judicial system at EPO

see here : http://techrights.org/2016/12/05/bunk-justice-at-epo/

“This “mis”management team should all be fired,” added another commenter.

Battistelli wants by all means to circumvent the staff representatives whom he truly hates since they do not wish to bend and praise his glory.

Battistelli’s problem is simple: he is enarque functioning with a software dating back last century. He thinks he knows better only he does not – see the mess he created and he has proven incapable solving?

The accolytes he recruited are no better. They too think they know better but the world outside is laughing at the EPO which they see sinking for the past 3 years.

The new “solution” is likely (once more) not to fly at the ILO-AT. Let’s see next week if the Administrative Council will approve that new pack of low quality legal work produced under the supervision of a German Vice President and a German Principal Directorate.

All this costs money and reputation. This “mis”management team should all be fired.

As we noted here earlier this week, Battistelli hopes to retroactively legalise his abuses. Battistelli is an utter catastrophe never seen in Europe, let aside the EPO. The term “Battistelli” might make the urban dictionaries one day, alongside Microsoft's Elop and Rick Belluzzo. Battistelli seems to be only destroying — not working for — the EPO, yet somehow Battistelli receives a secret salary from the EPO and nobody seems prepared to fire him.

“Thank you for your answers,” one person wrote. “Probably, now the usual EPO policy of changing the law when the judges interpret it in a way you do not like, will be carried out.”

“Further questions,” continued the thread. “Would it be possible for the staff reps who stepped down to come back? Though some have been dismissed, they are still legally elected staff reps appointed by the scs, aren’t they? How is the legal situation on that? If a staff rep gets dismissed, does he automatically cease to be staff rep? But that would necessitate new elections, wouldn’t it? Have those taken place? I do not think so. Anybody?”

Sadly it would appear that Article 52 of the EPO Service Regulations does not appear to apply to the President, the Vice-Presidents or to the Legal Services Department of the EPO.

Section 2 – Dismissal by the appointing authority

Article 52 – Professional incompetence

(1) Subject to Article 23 of the Convention, a permanent employee who proves
incompetent in the performance of his duties may be dismissed.
The appointing authority may, however, offer to classify the employee concerned in a lower grade and to assign him to a post corresponding to this new grade.

(2) Any proposal for the dismissal of a permanent employee shall set out the reasons on which it is based and shall be communicated to the employee concerned. He shall be entitled to make any comments thereon which he considers relevant.
The appointing authority shall take a reasoned decision, after following the procedure laid down in regard to disciplinary matters.

(3) Subject to Article 13, a permanent employee shall not be dismissed without notice. The notice shall be calculated on the basis of one month for each year of actual service; it shall not, however, be less than three months, nor greater than nine. The period of notice shall commence on the first day of the month following the date of notification of the decision to dismiss the employee. The period of notice shall be increased by one month for a permanent employee having his home as defined in Article 60, paragraph 2, in a country other than that in which he is employed.

We don’t believe that crooked Kongstad and his chinchillas (the delegates) will fire Battistelli just before Christmas, so we need to keep fighting for justice and we need to expose the serious abuses of the EPO. We continue to invite readers to anonymously send material to us. The more the public knows, the more often journalists all across Europe will need to subject authorities to scrutiny, and the more politicians will push to end the EPO’s tyranny. █

Share this post:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

Pages that cross-reference this one

What Else is New

VirnetX, a notorious patent troll, is poised to receive a huge sum of money from Apple and Qualcomm is trying to ban Apple products, serving to remind Apple of the detrimental impact of patents on Apple itself

Heise and The Register, two sites that have closely watched EPO affairs for a number of years, speak about the real problem which is declining patent quality (or rushed examination) -- a recipe for frivolous litigation in Europe

The Canadian BlackBerry has sued BLU in the US only to compel it to pay 'protection' money; Nokia's patents are being scattered to trolls, which are doing something similar (without risking litigation themselves)

The Administrative Council of the EPO does not appear to be interested in a serious, adult, scientific debate about the quality of European Patents (EPs) and is instead relaying lies from Benoît Battistelli

The EPO is staring down the abyss as high-level EPO management, quite frankly as usual, looks for new ways to further exacerbate patent quality (for superficial gains in the number of granted patents) rather than improve it

In China too, as expected, local companies are becoming rather disgusted by a wave of patent trolls, enabled by misguided officials and bad advice from the likes of IAM (which sets up events in China at the behest of the patent microcosm)

A culture of nepotism continues to thrive at the EPO, with García-Escudero Márquez rumoured to be after Campinos' position now that he's taking Battistelli's position; García-Escudero Márquez is also Battistelli's 'chinchilla' at the appeal boards, obliterating any illusion of independence